The Union Retirees Council of the Labor Council of West Central Illinois once more is holding its Union Retiree Health Fair, and this year it’s 8-11 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 10 at the Peoria Area Electrical Joint Apprenticeship & Training Committee (JATC) building, 4313 S. Entec Drive in Bartonville. Besides providing important information, and services, the health fair offers free seasonal flu shots.
Labor unrest in U.S. airline industry. At press time, unions representing workers who make aircraft and who attend passengers are on strike or preparing a work stoppage.
Boeing’s contract with more than 32,000 workers represented by the Machinists in Washington and Oregon expired Sept. 12, and workers previously voted to sanction a strike. Big issues are starting wages that barely match nearby fast-food jobs, dropping a defined-benefit pension for inferior 401(k)s, and required overtime that eats up weekends and leaves workers mentally and physically spent.
Elsewhere, flight attendants in the Association of Flight Attendant/Communications Workers of America have OK’d strikes or are voting on strike authorizations. At United, flight attendants voted 99.99% in favor of strike authorization after working under an “amendable” contract for three years and bargaining some nine months after filing for federal mediation.
New rules at Frontier limiting where flight attendants live and their commute helped spark about 4,000 flight attendants to cast ballots approving union leaders to call a walkout. And about 1,300 flight attendants at American Airlines’ wholly owned PSA Airlines also are voting on authorizing negotiators to call a strike.
“Flight Attendants at PSA and other regional airlines across the industry are fighting to end tiers in aviation,” said AFA president Sara Nelson. “PSA Flight Attendants wear the same uniforms, fly the same routes, and perform the same service as mainline Flight Attendants. But airlines leave them behind in compensation.”
UAW organizing Illinois’ Julian Electric, protesting Stellantis. Workers at a parts plant near Chicago this month filed for a union election after a supermajority of the 350 workers at Julian Electric, Inc., in Lockport, Ill., signed union authorization cards saying they want to form a union with the UAW.
“We are fighting together for respect,” said Gabriela Morales, a Julian Electric worker. “We do the work here and we deserve a voice.”
The company, which supplies parts to Ford, Navistar and other big manufacturers, started an aggressive anti-union campaign, but Gilbert Foust, a Ford worker and organizer with Local 551, said, “We are all autoworkers. Julian Electric workers deserve more money and more respect, and the members of Local 551 are going to do everything we can to make sure they win their union and their fair share.”
Meanwhile, the UAW said several union locals representing tens of thousands of workers at Stellantis are filing grievances against the automaker for refusing to honor their contract, paving the way for a national strike there.
“This company made a commitment to autoworkers at Stellantis in our union contract, and we intend to enforce that contract,” said UAW President Shawn Fain.
In the 2023 national contract with Stellantis — which reported net profit of $20 billion last year — the UAW won the right to strike over product and investment commitments and secured a pledge to reopen Belvidere (Ill.) Assembly Plant, idled last year. Since ratification, the corporation has gone back on its Belvidere promise and been unreceptive during talks with the union to stay on track.
Under the UAW-Stellantis contract, once an issue has been taken through the grievance procedure, the union is empowered to authorize a strike over the grievance.
Hundreds of Illinois warehouse and DHL workers join Teamsters. Warehouse workers at UNFI in Urbana have voted by a 3-to-1 margin to join Teamsters Local 26 to negotiate for fair pay, better health care, and improved working conditions.
“We joined the Teamsters because we’ve had enough of skyrocketing health-care premiums, insulting wages, and cuts to our paid time off,” said Kurt Hollwedel, a 21-year forklift operator at UNFI. “One-sixth of my paycheck is swallowed by health-care premiums, and management dismisses us as ‘unskilled’ workers who don’t deserve more. We know our worth, and we will fight for the pay and benefits we are owed.”
Since 2022, more than 1,700 workers at UNFI have voted to become Teamsters.
Meanwhile, more than 1,300 sort workers at DHL’s hub at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky airport have joined Teamsters Local 89 after the company voluntarily recognized their right to bargain collectively.
Nationwide, the Teamsters represent more than 7,300 workers at DHL Express.
Teamsters President Sean O’Brien contrasted DHL with Amazon, where the Teamsters are organizing. “No one better represents and protects American workers in delivery and logistics than the Teamsters union,” O’Brien said. “Corrupt Amazon executives will keep trying to crush workers’ efforts to organize, but through solidarity and militancy, workers will always win in the end.”
ILARA endorses Budzinski. Illinois Congresswoman Nikki Budzinski has been endorsed by the Illinois Alliance for Retired Americans, a non-profit, nonpartisan advocacy group with more than 23,000 members in the first-term Democrat’s District.
“Rep. Budzinski has already proven as a member of the U.S. House that she will look out for Illinois seniors,” said Don Todd, President of the Illinois ARA. “The stakes couldn’t be higher for seniors. We need Nikki Budzinski in the House fighting against any Republican plan to cut Social Security and Medicare.”
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